European Commission launches another consultation – this time on the reasons for not having more e-commerce trade

The European Commission has launched its latest consultation. This time, it is asking all interested parties – including retailers, governments and consumers – for the reasons why e-commerce trade is not greater. It questions why, 10 years after the adoption of the Electronic Commerce Directive, retail e-commerce is still less than 2% of total European retail trade.

The Commission is also on a drive to boost cross-border trade. It announced another consultation recently, following research that showed that just 8% of consumers buy online from a retailer based in another European Union Member State and that 61% of sellers refuse to deal with a consumer based in another country. The Commission claims that this is due to regulatory and legal concerns or uncertainty. For more on that story, please click here: http://www.mablaw.com/2010/07/european-commission-consults-on-new-eu-wide-contract-law/.

The latest consultation is open to comment until 15 October and can be found here: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2010/e-commerce_en.htm.